Gina Carano: Set to star in Soderbergh's next movie

Gina Carano: Set to star in Soderbergh's next movie

"Ocean's Eleven" director Steven Soderbergh chooses Gina Carano to star in his next film, a spy thriller called "Knockout."

Carano has been mentioned as 'Knockout' earlier also. The fighter is often referred to as 'the face of women’s mixed martial arts' for her prodigious fisticuffs skills.

The Academy award winning director has hitched a movie to a face new to Hollywood, even before this one.

His breakout film, Sex, Lies and Videotape, starred Andie MacDowell , who to that point was best known as a Calvin Klein model.

Soderbergh later won the best director Oscar for Traffic, in which he put Benicio del Toro in front of a bigger mainstream audience than the Puerto Rican actor had ever had.

Soderbergh hired a full cast of nonprofessional actors for his experimental film Bubble in 2009.

And Sasha Grey, whose previous experience of working in front of a camera was while naked and moaning and performing acts that made a speaking role implausible, is the star for Soderbergh's most recent movie, The Girlfriend Experience.

This time Soderbergh fixes his camera on Carano,  who actually has been in front of film and video cameras only once or twice. She was known as “Crush” on American Gladiators.

We have seen her on television sometimes and she also had minor roles in a couple of movies such as Red Alert 3 and Blood and Bone.

Now, she will star as a troublemaker offered the chance to use her skills as a secret agent.

According to Mike Fleming of Variety, "The film is a closer cousin to La Femme Nikita and Kill Bill than Million Dollar Baby, in that it doesn’t take place in the fight ring. Rather, Soderbergh considers the film as a flat out action film in the James Bond mold!"